


i know you're out there somewhere waiting (i know the stars can hear us praying)

by C_AND_B



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, mid-key alex x sam but i'm not gonna be THAT tagger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 12:21:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14977070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/C_AND_B/pseuds/C_AND_B
Summary: "Kara first discovers the concept of soulmates when she’s still young enough that most her questions are a simple ‘why?’  and her days are still spent beneath the light of a red sky, surrounded by the only family she’s ever come to know. It’s a simple question in her mind; a simple question to ask about the swirls on her wrist and one which she supposes must have an accompanying simple answer. She finds out the moment she poses the question that perhaps simple wasn’t the best choice of word. Complicated was better. Complex a little more. Messy was just about right."the old classic soulmate on one wrist, fated enemy on the other fic.





	i know you're out there somewhere waiting (i know the stars can hear us praying)

**Author's Note:**

> title from where you are by the score (10/10 recommend, 'cause it's a bop). prompt from ohmygrath on tumblr, longer ago than it probably should be, but it finally exists so wooo?
> 
> in terms of the fic, let's say it mostly follows canon - except there's no pointless het romances - until around 3x17 where I go super off book. also this was written before the finale so the Sam thing concludes differently, and with less effort, because I cba to change it or make it less ridiculous because i'm not here for plausibility and i thought it'd be cool.
> 
> anyway, enjoy, sorry for mistakes, hope it's not shit, etc.

Kara first discovers the concept of soulmates when she’s still young enough that most her questions are a simple ‘ _why?’_   and her days are still spent beneath the light of a red sky, surrounded by the only family she’s ever come to know. It’s a simple question in her mind; a simple question to ask about the swirls on her wrist and one which she supposes must have an accompanying simple answer. She finds out the moment she poses the question that perhaps simple wasn’t the best choice of word. Complicated was better. Complex a little more. Messy was just about right.

Her mother tells her about soulmates. She tells her that it means there’s someone out there that was made to be with Kara, someone who had Kara’s name on their wrist and was just as excited to meet her as she was them. She tells her about the matrix, about how it logs everyone’s names and helps them find one another. Kara’s too young to focus on the way her mother eyes the names on Kara’s wrists with a look of sorrow. She’s old enough to know they’re not written in Kryptonian but not old enough to dwell on the realities of what that might mean.

Astra tells her about fated enemies. She takes the question more seriously than Kara’s mother. She makes Kara sit down on her lap as she explains that the names can be as bad a thing as they are good. Astra warns Kara that not everyone will always be nice to her, that sometimes, no matter how hard you try, no matter how good a person you are, there would still be people out there who were ultimately bad, people who would want to do bad things to you. Then she takes in the wide-eyed fear evident on Kara’s face and softens in the way she always did around Kara, in the way that always made Kara feel like the most important person in the world.

_“People may do bad things. They may make the wrong decisions for the wrong reasons, or sometimes even the right ones. But no one is irredeemable. No matter what your wrist says, everyone always has a choice.”_

* * *

 

The day Kara learns of Earth is the day she hacks into the matrix. A little too much curiosity mixed with too much daring has her wondering exactly what it says about her names - she could read them now, had been pouring through books on Earth languages for hours before she found the one she wanted, spent a few more working out just how the sounds would work.

**_Lena Luthor_** and **_Samantha Arias_**.

They’re nice names, she supposes, if names even had the capacity to be nice. They fall from her lips funny when she whispers them in the hidden confines of her room. Her sounds are too harsh, her tongue not half soft enough to get them quite right but she repeats them over and over until she feels like she can still hear them running on repeat in her head.

The matrix leaves much to be desired. Her names are logged like everyone else’s but they flag no results like the others do. No pictures. No information. Just names in a language from a world Kara has never been to, but one that will presumably mean everything to her at some point. Kara begins to realise that point might be a lot closer than she first thought when she stumbles upon something she shouldn’t in a group of files she definitely shouldn’t have been stumbling in.

* * *

 

She’s scared, that’s all she can think. That’s all Kara really feels in that moment. An overwhelming sense of fear, a simmering kind of panic that had been growing since her parents rushed her to an escape pod amidst the cries of fearful citizens and the resigned looks on others that said these people knew their fate. Kara knew it too. She shuddered.

Kara’s entire world crumbles around her and her mother places her inside a pod with a necklace and a request to protect Kal-El on the new world, on _Earth_. Kara promises in broken sentences and stuttered syllables as she clutches hold of her mother like maybe if she holds hard enough it’ll make it all go away. That if she holds hard enough she’ll wake up in her room, in her bed, in the dead of night covered in sweat but safe. But Kara doesn’t wake up, and her mother disentangles herself a moment later, kissing her head and closing the pod securely with a final pat and sudden tears that Kara’s knows her mother had been trying to hold at bay until Kara could no longer see.

Kara runs her fingers over the names on her wrists as she takes in the gradual destruction of her home. Of her family. Of her friends. She doesn’t question the way her fingers favour her left over her right, doesn’t focus on the swirling letters she’s tracing or anything else much for that matter beyond the clench of her heart as Krypton, her _home_ , disappears from view.

She vows to be strong as she stares ahead and tells herself looking back will only make it harder. She needs to be strong now. Strong enough to survive. Strong enough to keep Kal safe. Strong enough to make her family proud of her. Strong enough to make their sacrifice worth it.

* * *

 

Alex Danvers is annoying. She’s brash, and a little spiteful, and a lot angry and Kara thinks she might just be one of the strongest people she’s ever met. She tells herself that why she tries to cling to her with all her might. She clings to Alex because she’s smart and unrelenting and doesn’t even have the slightest fear in her eyes as she regards Kara with the full knowledge that Kara isn’t like a regular teenager, that Kara had the potential to be far more dangerous than they had even dared to think.

Alex Danvers is annoying but she answers every question Kara has in the end, makes her feel a little bit more at home with every answer, with every almost silent laugh as she comprehends the absurdity of Kara’s new inquiries and yet still gives responses like they were the most serious questions in the world.

Maybe she knew to Kara they were.

Maybe she just knew that Kara needed to feel less alone.

For a time Kara feels close to Kal-El (Clark, she reminds herself time and again). He tries. She knows that he tries. He slips in visits between work, and his life, and trying to protect Metropolis. He fumbles through a language that is foreign to his tongue and attempts to understand Kara when she references something he had never seen with his own two eyes.

He _tries_.

Mostly his trying simply makes Kara feel further away from him, less like family, less like the two lone survivors of a tragedy, but the presence of two Earthen names pressed on his wrists makes Kara feel close for a time because he too, is connected to a Luthor. For once they have something in common, something that links them, something to share. Kara mulls over the name Lex Luthor for a long time, silently thanks a man she’s never met for making her feel connected to the one person who was linked to her past.

Thanks turns to fear as Kara watches her cousin almost bleed out on the streets of Metropolis, only _just_ winning a fight for what seems like the first time ever. Thanks turns to fear as Kara watches Lex Luthor get branded as a lunatic and she begins to wonder what the names printed on her wrist really mean for her, as she wonders what Lena Luthor will bring to her life.

Kara covers her wrists from that point on. Gets used to the feeling of chunky bracelets covering her skin any time she ventures outside. She gets used to the curious looks people send her way when they catch sight of hidden names on such a young girl, wonder why someone so young would already be so cautious, so afraid. It’s better than the piteous ones.

Curiosity was always better than pity.

* * *

 

“You can’t just go interview her,” Kara feels like she’s been having this argument for hours, probably because this was the fourth time Alex had said that exact sentence. The fourth time she had said it with the exact same amount of conviction. It also happened to be the fourth time Kara had rolled her eyes at the words, though it was the first time she stopped in her tracks to dignify it with a response, if only in the hopes that they could finally be done with the whole thing.

“What exactly is she going to do, Alex?” Kara asks incredulously. “We’re going to visit her office, the one in the same building filled with hundreds of _innocent employees_.” Kara had seen Lena on TV, which was a given really considering she seemed to be arguably the most well documented woman in the history of National City - Supergirl included. But Kara had seen her, and despite the way the news seemed to frame her deeds, Kara didn’t see how opening up a children’s hospital and visiting it every other weekend could be a bad thing. There were a lot of things up in the air about Lena Luthor but there was no way she would put that many lives at risk. Kara knew that much.

“And you think her brother mulled over the number of causalities he was going to cause before he went on his parade of destruction?”

“She’s not Lex,” Kara states robotically. It was a familiar phrase to her. One that had become almost second nature by this point in her life, though usually it was in response to Clark telling her to be careful, telling her that Luthor’s were to be handled with caution (like his opinions on the matter should be held in such high esteem considering how well his dealings with them went).

“You’ve never met her. She could literally be Lex in a dress.” On any other day, Kara might have laughed at that. Definitely would have at least cracked a smile at the absurdity of the statement. Not today. Not after she had spent twenty minutes hyperventilating in the bathroom, staring at Lena’s name on her skin and wondering what today might mean for her future. Not after she had gone through this entire conversation in her own head three times over before Winn had cracked a completely stupid joke and she remembered everyone chose their own path.

“Okay, now you’re just being ridiculous.”

“I’m being safe, Kara,” Alex retorts.

“I’ll be with Clark,” Kara assures and perhaps it wasn’t her best line of argument, considering the bitter response it sparks.

“Yeah because Clark is well known for being there for you,” Alex mumbles below her breath with such petulance that Kara is sure she genuinely forgot there was likely nothing she could ever say that Kara wouldn’t manage to hear.

“I have super-hearing,” Kara sighs but stops on her mission to walk fast enough to escape Alex and halts to look her sister in the eye. “Look you can sit outside the building if you’d like but I’m going inside to interview her. You know we need to get to the bottom of what happened on the Venture and I... I _need_ to know what she’s like Alex. I can’t walk around another day with these names printed on me making assumptions based on everyone else’s prejudice.” She’s never needed something more in her entire life, never searched for clarity so hard before. She supposes her desperation must be pretty obvious because it takes Alex one second of looking at her before she sighs and drops her arms from their crossed position.

“Fine, but I am sitting outside. And you’re wearing a comm.”

“I’d expect nothing less.” Kara smiles, pressing a kiss to Alex’s temple and very pointedly slipping the comm into her ear before prancing off with far more pep than she actually feels (she was more toeing the line between complete fear and utter excitement).

“And stop bouncing; you’re supposed to be playing a respected reporter!”

* * *

 

She’s pretty. That’s the first thing Kara thinks, before everything else starts pouring in, Kara’s brain halts for a second just to note that she’s pretty. At first Kara thinks it’s an obvious thing - Lena was the kind of pretty that demanded people take notice, even begrudgingly. A sharp jaw and vibrant eyes carved onto a spotless canvas.

She was beautiful.

Except that the more Kara found herself staring at her, the more she realised half of her beauty sat somewhere deeper. The swirl of colours fighting for dominance in her irises and the regular fight in her eyes that said she just wanted to prove herself. The half healed holes in her ears that told a story of a past that the press hadn’t managed to get a hold of, told a story of the woman that sat behind the Luthor mask and all the baggage that came with it. A story that Kara really wanted to know.

She’s smart. That’s the next thing Kara thinks. Lena wastes no time in getting down to it, wastes no time pretending they’re not all acutely aware of why they’ve found themselves in her office. Kara finds herself smiling unwittingly as Lena calls it lucky that Superman saved the day, even as she finds herself awkwardly opening her mouth to mention that Supergirl, _she_ , was also there to do her bit. Lena, on her part, grins like she’s happy for the intrusion, like she was waiting for Clark Kent’s pastel wearing sidekick to finally have something to say.

“And who are you exactly?” She asks with a level of mirth Kara hadn’t been expecting, skirting round the two reporters with ease and picking up a vase of water.

“Um, I- I’m Kara Danvers. I’m not with the Daily Planet, I’m with CatCo Magazine. _Sort of_.” If Kara wasn’t so nervous that she was trying to stop her legs from shaking the building into an earthquake, she might have noted the way Lena stopped for a second, might have thought about the fact that half of the water Lena poured ended up trickling over the cabinet rather than sitting in her glass. She might have noticed the pause in conversation long enough for Lena’s breath to stutter, catch and resume its normal proceedings before she turned back to them with a smile meant to disarm.

“That’s not a publication known for its hard hitting journalism, more like high-waisted jeans, yes or no.” Kara feels like there’s something more to the comment, something in the ways it’s said like Lena was testing the waters, trying to see if she could get a rise out of Clark’s (almost) silent partner.

“I’m just tagging along for today.”

“Right,” Lena says, tone implying she’s actually a little disappointed in that answer, and Kara feels the sudden urge to fix that. An urge that she squashes down as Lena continues talking, attempts to speed along the process of proving herself innocent, like she imagined it wouldn’t be the only time she would have to prove it that day. She was probably right. Kara imagined she was rarely wrong.

Kara flinches when Clark makes a comment about the Luthor name but Lena doesn’t. She smirks. Makes a comment to Clark that Kara knows throws him off guard, even if it is just for a second. Only then she flips. Lena flips and does something that has both her and Clark taking a step back - she’s unabashedly honest, imploring even. She sets them with a look so earnest that Kara almost forgets to scan the room when she spins away from them in her chair, and honestly, when she does remember the plan, Kara has never been more thankful to find nothing incriminating.

“I’m just a woman trying to make a name for herself outside of her family. Can you understand that?” The words hit Kara harder than they should, harder than she imagines even Lena had intended them to, but she knows how it feels. Kara knows what it’s like to be overshadowed, pushed aside, lumped in as being nothing more than ‘superman’s cousin’. She knows what it’s like to want to be something more, to want to stop hiding and be something good. Something great. For the first time in a long time Kara allows herself a moment to imagine her aunt’s face crowned by the triumphant rays of Rao telling her that everyone had a choice to make.

No one was irredeemable.

“Yeah,” Kara replies with more emotion than she means to express but all the emotion she feels. Kara knows their eyes lock for a beat too long, knows that the look passing between them is an unspoken recognition of something they were both hiding beneath bracelets and secrets.

She doesn’t snap out of it as quickly as Lena does, doesn’t really snap out of it at all until they’ve left Lena’s office and Clark does all the work for her by gently pulling her to the side and tugging her arm up so that her wrist sits clearly between them.

(Somehow she doesn’t think it’s the right time to mention he’s holding the wrong wrist).

“You can’t let _this_ cloud your judgement.”

“I’ve already been given this speech once today.”

“Kara, I’m not-“

“You heard her, Clark. She wants to do something good, she wants _to be_ good. Have you ever stopped to think that the exact reason she might end up going the other way is because no one ever believes her?” Kara can’t recall the last time she interrupted Clark. Come to think of it, she’s not sure she ever really has. She was sent to protect him but he was grown when she arrived and she had never stopped to question his sudden authority. Until now. Now when he looks shocked enough at her outburst that she can practically see the fight draining from him.

“I just want you to be careful.”

“We’ve had one conversation that I was barely involved in. I’m not in their declaring my love and promising to take over the world. I know she could be my enemy, Clark.  _I know_. But shouldn’t we give her the benefit of the doubt?”

“I don’t like it,” Clark says simply and Kara feels the anger flare up before she can even think of putting a stop to it.

“Well you don’t have to like it Clark because I’m sure you’ll be gone soon enough.” It really shouldn’t feel as good as it does to say it but it’s frankly amazing, like a slap for all the times Clark had left her behind.

A slap from thirteen year old Kara left on a stranger’s doorstep because that’s what was best for her. A slap from a sixteen year old Kara still not feeling like she fit in and pleading for Clark to let her come out flying with him just once. A slap from eighteen year old Kara who had finally kissed her first real boyfriend only to break his nose and have Clark berate her about being careful like she wasn’t already beating herself up. A slap from today’s Kara who was tired of him pretending she didn’t understand the way the world worked, the way humans worked.

Kara walks off before he can reply. The snort she hears from Alex over the comm the only thing stopping her from smashing the elevator keypad with her fist (there’s a small chance she might still damage the ground floor button beyond repair).

* * *

 

“ _I hope this isn’t the last time we talk_. What does that even mean?” Kara had been mulling the words over in her head since Lena had spoken them because she hadn’t said them to Clark, hadn’t aimed it at both of them, hadn’t half-heartedly spoken them in their direction. She had looked Kara in the eye and said the words like she wanted nothing  more than for Kara to oblige and Kara was maybe, sort of, freaking out just the tiniest of amounts, hence why she was spinning around on a DEO chair, staring at the ceiling and speaking her every last thought aloud to Winn.

“I think it means she hopes it isn’t the last time the two of you talk but I could be reading into it,” he quips, eyeing Kara like she was losing her mind but he was still enjoying it quite a bit, enjoying rehashing the old days when Kara and he had spent many an hour spinning on a CatCo chair and talking about nothing and everything in the rare moments when Cat Grant wasn’t calling for their undivided attention and effort.

“Why am I even asking you about this?” Winn wasn’t exactly the picture of support, well he was, just never the kind of support that was unburdened by sarcasm and silent judgements.

“Because everyone else is riding the ‘all Luthors are evil’ train and you wanted an unbiased audience.” Yeah that was pretty much it down to a tee. She had almost messed up and said something to Alex earlier that day but she could see the furrow of her brow from a mile away. And she wouldn’t even dare speak a word to James considering he looked just about ready to give a lecture anytime Kara even mentioned someone with a name beginning with ‘L’.

“Didn’t you have a poster of Lena in college?” Kara asks with a grin despite the fact that she knows the answer to be yes, just like she knows Winn had to get it specially printed because Lena Luthor posters weren’t exactly in high demand, even before the family name crisis.

“Not for weird reasons, she’s just a total genius and I objectively appreciate her scientific talents.”

“Her scientific talents? Of course.”

“Stop turning this on me or I’ll tell Alex you’re mooning,” Winn threatens and Kara finally stops her spinning to level him with a look that is the best version of a glare she can get. It doesn’t do much to deter the victorious smirk on Winn’s face, another downside of the two of them having been friends for so long (although the upside of those years of friendship was that Kara had watched Winn on his phone enough to know the password and to also know the kick Alex would get out of knowing just what kind of music he had stored on there).

“I’m not mooning, I’m just... confused.” Completely and utterly befuddled. Muddled. Addled. Unbalanced... she may have also spent the afternoon looking through a thesaurus in order to spice up her latest article in a bid to impress Snapper. She’s not sure it worked.

“I say spend some time with her.” Of all the things Kara had expected Winn to say that wasn’t one at the top of the list. That one, in fact, hadn’t even managed to make the list in the first place.

“What?”

“Spend some time with her, get to know her, see how you feel,” Winn continues, levelling Kara with a look that basically screamed _hear me out before you tell me it’s a stupid idea_ or something along those exact lines. “Look Kara, this whole thing is confusing for everyone, just talk to her, get a feel for the kind of person she is, do the same thing everyone else does to figure this whole two name thing out. Just because yours seems to have higher stakes doesn’t mean you should have to be so afraid to see what might happen.”

That actually... made perfect sense.

Perfect, logical, cogent sense.

“So I should just go see her?” Kara checks, attempting to not sound too eager about the prospect but ultimately totally failing in that area. She doesn’t want to sound too much like she was asking Winn’s permission to go see Lena but she was, perhaps, a little bit hoping Winn would give her permission to do this one thing everyone else kept telling her was the worst idea ever (if only so when, no _if_ , it blew up in her face she would have someone to throw some blame to - she wondered how old was too old to use _Winn told me to_ as an excuse).

“Well maybe make up some excuse as to why you want to see her because just bulldozing your way into her office will probably come off as a little weird, and she strikes me as the kind of woman who has security guards that don’t play so well with people who come off as a _little weird_.”

“Right, well, I’m a reporter now so I could... report?”

“Go get her, Supes.”

“Thanks, Winn.”

“Thanks for not letting someone’s name dictate your opinion of them,” Winn says simply and Kara is taken back to the first time she met a Winn Schott that flinched every time he told someone his full name, that braced himself the first time he’d introduced himself to Kara. His smile when Kara hadn’t even blinked had been blinding. Somehow she knows Lena’s will be even more mesmerising.

(Bewitching...

Enchanting...

Captiv-

No more thesauruses for a while).

* * *

“A gala? Kara you can’t just go to her gala,” Alex begins and Kara knew this would happen the second she closed the door on a quietly smiling Lena. But she also knew that there was no _just_ about it. It wasn’t like Kara was going to casually wander into the gala without a care and just spend the evening living it up with the high rollers of National City. She was going to very awkwardly walk into the gala on unsure feet and with more than a little apprehension and be uncomfortable the entire time. It promised to be a real hoot (she was obviously still going anyway).

“I’m getting an odd sense of déjà vu here, Alex.” _You can’t just go interview her, Kara_. _You can’t be texting her this much, Kara_. _Lena could be dangerous Kara and you’re being reckless_. And maybe that last one wasn’t entirely wrong, there was a chance that anyone Kara came across in her life could be dangerous to her, there was also a much higher chance that she was a reckless individual.

“Well this time I really mean it. How exactly do you think you’re going to get away with pretending to be two completely different people?” Truthfully she... hadn’t thought through the plan that far ahead (see: the previous comment about her generally reckless nature).

“I’m sure she won’t pay that much attention.”

“She came to your office to personally invite you and then just showed up at your apartment out of the blue to ask you to pass an invite along to Supergirl - both requests she could have texted. She’s paying attention.” Okay, so maybe Kara knew that. Maybe Kara knew that Lena had been paying her more attention than she would the average mild mannered reporter. Maybe Kara knew Lena wouldn’t have trouble finding her in a crowded room. And maybe she had simply decided not to care in the interest of attempting to make her life less complicated (and yes, she was aware it could still go the exact other way).

“She’ll have other things to do than hang out with me, Alex,” Kara argues.

“Like selling off her alien killing device?” The thing to know about Alex Danvers was that she was good at playing dirty, great at it. In fact, she liked it. Thrived on it sometimes. That much had become abundantly clear to Kara within weeks of finding herself in the Danvers’ household. It had scared Kara at first, the tenacity, the ability to wait until the perfect moment to strike and then Kara had found herself in a less than desirable situation with a girl at school and Alex had used that exact same tenacity to make Kara feel safe.

Unfortunately Kara had apparently been chosen to be on the receiving end today.

“Okay, it was an alien _detection_ device and you know full well she scrapped that after we spoke about it. I realised some aliens did need policing and she realised the device was going to cause more harm than good in the end.” Kara won’t lie and say that she didn’t, for exactly six hours, thirty four minutes and sixteen seconds, believe that she may have been giving Lena far more credit than she deserves. She won’t pretend for all that time she wasn’t wondering how she didn’t see her enemy right under her nose.

And then she took a breath, took a step back, took a second.

That was when she realised she was being ridiculous, about as ridiculous as everyone else when it came to Lena Luthor. Which was to say that she was stuck in her own mindset, spiralling into a deeper and deeper hole dug by her sometimes too black and white sense of morality. So Kara had come to the conclusion that Lena was simply doing what she thought right and despite the way it clashed with Kara’s views, that didn’t make her actions wrong.

Evidently that was something everyone else was failing to grasp.

(And Kara really needed to make a note to stop venting to Alex about everything, especially when it was something that could eventually be used against her in argument).

“I’m sending Winn with you.”

“I’m beginning to feel like a Victorian woman being chaperoned on dates.” Next she was going to be wearing a floor length skirt with her super-suit and having Eliza sit in on tea parties with anyone who could potentially be of romantic interest to her.

“So this is a date?”

“No, this is me being her only friend in National City.” Her only friend, that’s what Lena had said. Lena who came to her office with an apprehensive look on her face and a shake in her hands that Kara had never thought she’d find considering the woman she first met. Honestly the only thing shaking more than her hands were the butterflies in Kara’s stomach when Lena gave her _that_ look, with _that_ lip bite and _that_ smile. Not that Kara was going to be sharing that little titbit with anyone; she barely had the guts to admit it to herself.

“Fine but be careful, and call me if she’s on the receiving end of yet another murder attempt.”

“Of course.” At least Alex was being sensible about this one thing. And at least Kara was one problem down for the day. One problem that was now currently walking out of her apartment with a pointed look paired with a small smile that still managed to be soft (classic ‘I _support you but not all of your choices_ ’ Alex).

One problem down. The problem that Kara had thought would be the most difficult one of the day until she spends a good few hours essentially redecorating her apartment with strewn clothes because she had absolutely no idea what she should wear. The problem that was getting exponentially worse when she realised she had absolutely no idea who to call about not knowing what to wear.

Alex was definitely out of the question. Winn was great at sewing costumes but didn’t know much about anything other than shirts and sweaters. Mon-El was sure to be free considering his love of wasting time but Kara was under the impression asking his opinion would only result in having to listen to some disastrous stories about women on Daxam that really only served to make it more difficult to not follow her prejudicial gut feeling to not trust any Daxamite.

Problem two was a headache. A headache that Kara could technically solve in an instant if she just continued to make reckless decisions without fear. All she would have to do was... Kara picks up her phone, flicks through her contacts and slams her finger on the phone before she can talk herself out of it (a slam which costs her a few cracks in her recently fixed phone screen).

“Kara, are you alright?” Lena’s voice trickles through the receiver, sounding more panicked than Kara had ever heard. The kind of panic that made it sound like she was afraid Kara was going to cancel, the kind of panic that made Kara wonder how many times she had been cancelled on in the past.

“I’m fine, I just, well, I don’t know what to wear.” And now, in the process of actually saying it out loud, she feels stupid. Then Lena chuckles at the word vomit and Kara feels even more stupid.

“What?” Lena asks, an air of laughter still evident in her tone though she mostly sounds taken aback that the question had even been asked in the first place. Kara supposes it’s never a question Lena had asked herself, she’d practically been raised on these kinds of events. They were in her blood. Kara’s blood on the other hand was filled with sweatpants and potstickers. Sure, Kara had been to CatCo events before to help Cat but she’d never been personally invited to them and she’d never felt like she really needed to fit in whilst she was simultaneously running errands for her boss.

“What do people wear to galas? Do I need to look fancy?”

“I really don’t think you need to worry, Kara, you could wear a plastic bag and still look beautiful,” Lena says without missing a beat, halting for a second alongside Kara’s heart as they both come to the realisation of what she actually said. Lena clears her throat when the pause goes on too long and Kara barely has time to wonder how a person makes a throat clear sound self-deprecating before Lena is taking an audible breath and speaking again. “But I could... come over and help if you’d like?”

Kara takes a second to weigh the pros and cons of the situation. The pros being that she could finally start to follow Winn’s advice and get to know Lena beyond the four walls of her office, she’d also get the advice she needed instead of showing up looking like an idiot, and you know, she would also get to see Lena’s face. The cons being...

“Could you?”

“Consider me on my way.”

The thing that Kara will come to know about Lena Luthor is that when she says something, she means it. Like _really_ means it. Like there’s a knock on Kara’s door within twenty minutes of them hanging up the phone level means it. The other thing Kara will come to know is exactly how much time it takes her to hang all of her clothes back up and shove them in her wardrobe in order to pretend she was more put together than she actually is before opening her door.

“Lena you look...” Great. Amazing. Heart-stoppingly breathtaking. Good enough to incite an all out war in Ancient Greece.  “I didn’t realise you’d be all ready to go.” Which now seems like another stupid thing to come out of Kara’s mouth. The gala was in two hours and Lena had time to come and help Kara pick out a dress, of course she was already ready herself - perfectly painted red lips and all.

“I got too nervous to just sit around, so I decided to get ready two hours too early.”

“Nervous?” Kara enquires, finally having the sense to move aside and let Lena into her apartment. Lena follows in with a smile, dropping her bag by the door and hanging her coat with an ease that makes Kara wonder what it would be like if Lena had been here many times, how at ease she’d be if she was invited to game nights and movie nights, if she did turn out to be Kara’s soulmate and agreed to live in this very apartment.

“Oh you know, I have a reputation to uphold, and donations to charm out of people, and a life I need to keep going despite the many attempts to end it. Usual everyday problems, right?”

“But Supergirl will be there,” Kara points out, hopes that those words will manage to bring Lena some solace, thinks about how ironic it is that those are the words she was offering someone of Luthor family origin as comfort, wonders when other people would begin to notice that Lena Luthor wasn’t quite like the others of her supposed creed.

“Yeah, thank you for that by the way. And thank you for agreeing to come yourself, which, speaking of your attendance, I think somebody called me in a fit of panic?”

“Oh right!” Kara says, strolling towards her wardrobe with a quick motion for Lena to follow. Kara squashes down the thought that her whole wardrobe probably cost less than the dress Lena was currently wearing to instead flick the doors open with an over exaggerated flourish. “Welcome to the wardrobe of Kara Danvers.”

“I have to admit, I expected to find more things on the floor.”

“I may have cleaned up a bit before you got here.”

“That makes sense,” Lena says, voice slightly muffled as she ducks her head into Kara’s wardrobe. For a moment it strikes Kara as oddly intimate, letting Lena go through her clothes, letting her have a peek into the inner workings of Kara Danvers through them.

Letting her see that Kara’s wardrobe is primarily filled with soft sweaters and comfortable slacks - clothes built for fitting in, for being taken seriously, for hiding. Letting her see the skirts they both know Kara would never wear next to the ones that were a little bit longer, a little bit looser, that they both know she would because they were cute, non-assuming, the kind of skirts she started wearing when the gazes of the men on her floor started to linger too long.

Letting her see the dresses Kara saved for work and the ones she saved for nights out she never really went on anymore. Letting her see the clothes Kara had stashed in the corner because she bought them whilst infected with red kryptonite and she didn’t have the heart to look at them long enough to throw them out (and maybe a little because sometimes when she’s feeling daring she wants to be able to wear something like that again).

It is intimate to her.

She wonders if Lena sees it that way, if the reason she lingers so long despite her hands having drifted to one dress in particular almost immediately means she’s trying to work out what these clothes mean, like pieces of a puzzle that build the woman behind her.

“Any ideas?” Kara prompts.

“I think you should try this one.” Lena’s hand grasps the very dress Kara expected as she turns back with a grin. It’s a good choice, Kara thinks. Subtle but pretty. Something that made her look like she fit in with the crowd at the same time as not standing out enough that she would be noticed when she inevitably disappeared (not that Lena would have factored that into her decision, maybe she just thought that Kara had nice arms).

“Okay, let me just...” Kara fingers shift slowly towards her outfit with a raised brow until Lena’s face flips into realisation.

“Oh right I’ll...” Lena puts her hands over her eyes, turns around for good measure and if Kara were a more confident woman she might have noticed the slight blush on Lena’s cheeks, she might even have taken the time to comment on it. Instead Kara takes the time to turn around too as she removes her clothes and slips the dress on, one leg at a time just like normal human people, struggles with the impossible to reach behind your back zip just like normal human people too.

“Could you do me up?”

“Of course,” Lena says when she’s already in proximity to Kara, when she’s close enough that her breath creates a patch of lingering heat on Kara’s exposed back, close enough that her fingers are skimming Kara’s back within a second, tugging the zip up with caution and almost laughable precision considering it simply followed the teeth. Kara spins when she’s done, opens her arms for assessment and offers an unsure smile until Lena’s eyes turn soft. “You look lovely.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Lena says simply, letting their eyes stay locked for a beat too long before she tears her gaze away from Kara’s and points towards the door. “Well I should get going to make sure everything is set up properly. Can’t be having it look half-assed, people will start writing about how I hate children. But you’ll be there at seven?”

“I won’t be late, scout’s honour.”

“Were you really a girl scout?”

“Well, no, but I still promise to not be late,” Kara admits and revels in the way Lena laughs at the immediate unabashed honesty.

“I’ll see you soon, Kara.” And just like that she’s gone as quickly as she came and Kara is left staring at her wrists with more confusion than ever. She’s spent the beginning few years of her life excited, her first few years on Earth afraid of actually being in touching distance, her late teenage years afraid of what it might mean to be tied to a Luthor and the years after that wondering how in the hell people ever managed to figure these things out smoothly.

But then she supposed that was the kicker.

 Falling in love wasn’t supposed to be smooth, that’s why they called it falling.

(Not that she was in love with Lena Luthor. They barely knew one another. She just had a feeling that it wouldn’t be so hard to fall when that woman was involved. Heck, she might even willingly jump).

* * *

 

Everything goes a little crazy after that. Scratch that. Everything goes completely crazy after that. Viruses created by her family are released and Kara’s entire world view gets flipped. Lena plays the villain only to secretly be the hero and Kara’s relieved as much as she is worried that she could believe Lena would do that so easily. Lena gets accused of having kryptonite and Kara doesn’t even waver in her belief because Lena hadn’t lied to her yet, why would she start then.

A magical imp appears and then a man makes everyone burst into song and then an Englishman with a lovely beard and a mysterious past with Lena that makes Kara’s skin crawl.

And then, as if things couldn’t possibly get any more hectic, there’s an alien invasion. An honest to Rao, alien invasion. But as much as it screws everything up, as much as it makes Kara question who she is as a person she thinks it also puts a few things into perspective because Kara panics when Lena is on that ship. She panics enough that she starts to question things, questions them more when it’s Lena who eventually makes her want to be Kara Danvers again instead of hiding behind her cape and the shell of Kara Zor-El. Lena who Supergirl confides in about the way she feels, the way she blames herself for all those deaths, the deaths of those just following orders.

It’s Lena who makes Kara feel whole again and she starts to think maybe it’s obvious. Maybe it’s been obvious the entire time in spite of their names and a history they played no real part in. Maybe it’s been staring her in the face the entire time.

And then fate throws a kryptonite knuckle-duster dressed fist to her face.

And then she’s too invested on getting lunch to stop herself slamming into a woman.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” Kara says before it’s even clear that it’s her fault because if she knows one thing about herself - it was probably her fault. Let it just be said that sometimes when she’s thinking of food she forgets to go at a normal pace and also forgets she has above average eyesight, despite the glasses she wears, and forgets to use her eyes.

“No, it was probably for the best, my daughter keeps telling me to stop eating these things and I did think my outfit was a little too plain today,” the woman offers with a smile and suddenly Kara is struck by how dazzling a smile she has and also how she had not just managed to smack into the woman, but also had smacked the sauce covered hot dog she had obviously just bought from the cart onto her white shirt. Classic Kara.

“Yellow is a good colour on you,” Kara says with a grimace.

She laughs, “thank you.”

“Please let me buy you another one though or I’ll feel bad about this all day, you can make your daughter proud tomorrow.” She wondered how old this woman’s daughter could possibly be, apparently old enough that she was thinking about healthy diets but young enough that it made sense that this woman had a child. This woman in what looked to be an expensive suit, with perfectly kept hair despite the tenacity of the wind that day, who had kind eyes that sparkled with a hint of mischief that had Kara curious to learn more.

“If you insist.” Kara smiles at the response. A smile that falls a little when she realises she’s going to have to buy a sensible number of hotdogs for herself (also unfortunately known as one) instead of the four she had intended to purchase and inhale. But she continues on anyway, already mentally planning her route to the next best cart near her office. Unfortunately fate seemed to also have it in for her stomach because the moment she hands the woman her hotdog, Kara’s ears pick up the faint sound of more than a few sirens screaming a few blocks away.

“I have to run but enjoy your hotdog, sorry about your shirt. I thought it was nice!”

“Thank you!” She calls before Kara disappears out of sight and honestly, by the time Kara is knee deep in trouble with National City’s new villain of the week, she doesn’t really have time to think about chocolate eyes and a cheeky smile. She doesn’t dwell too much at all on the meeting with the woman who was a breath of fresh air amidst the perils of the rest of the day.

The woman who was pretty, beautiful even, and who seemed super nice... and okay so she maybe dwelled a little.

But, by the end of the day, when Kara has spent the entire day questioning who she is and being thrown into remembering the worst time of her life over and over again by some psychotic psychic named Psi, and finds herself in the arms that make her feel just that little bit safer, _Lena’s arms_ , she has all but forgotten the woman. And then, just as to be expected considering her life’s track record, and with the previously mentioned proverbial kryptonite knuckle-dusters, fate smacks the woman straight back into Kara’s immediate vicinity just to spice things up.

“Oh Kara, this is Samantha Arias. She’s going to be taking over for me at L-Corp.” Samantha Arias. _Samantha Arias_. This was Samantha Arias and Kara couldn’t stop saying her name even if it was only mentally. Truthfully she was really just attempting to stop herself from saying it aloud, to stop herself from running her fingers along the brace on her right hand wrist like she so desperately wants to because this was Samantha Arias (that was the last one, she promised).

“Hey, hot dog girl,” Samantha Arias says (and okay so that was the actual last time). Lena looks between them with a look of such confusion for a second before she schools it in the next like it was never there, and Kara might go as far as to say she spots some jealously when Kara sends a grin Sam’s way if she were ever so inclined to believe Lena could even be a jealous woman.

“Kara’s fine. I see you changed your shirt.” And it was dark blue this time. Kara stain proof. Smart.

“Thankfully I always keep a spare on me, you have no idea how many shirts I’ve ruined piercing juice boxes. Somehow they’re a lot harder than running a company.” Kara was inclined to agree with that one. The holes always seemed so small and Kara could never manage to use the correct amount of strength amidst all her frustration. Not that she was stupidly going to admit that to her current audience so instead she laughs and makes excuses to be anywhere but between the two names printed on her skin because things just got way more complicated than she ever imagined.

Far more complicated than she could handle after the day she had just been through.

Far more complicated than she knew how to untangle.

* * *

 

When Kara first got to Earth she never thought she’d make friends. She was heavy-handed, and out of touch and far too smart for her own good (the kind of smart that took her a while to convince herself to hide). She was weird. She was different. She was, well, alien.

When Kara first got to Earth she never thought she’d make any friends beyond her first, never wanted to drag anyone else down with her after Kenny. Then Alex built her back up, made her feel trustworthy, made her want to make friends. Unfortunately, despite her wants, Kara still seemed to have trouble for the longest time and then she got to CatCo and suddenly everything was right.

The point of all that being, Kara never expected to have running game nights and karaoke nights and never, in all her wildest dreams, did she ever expect that she would be having girls’ night. And never did she expect that girls’ night would entail her sitting with the two women whose names were on her wrist and her sister and her girlfriend, scratch that, _fiancée._ Honestly it was all a little absurd. Half amazing, half terrifying but all very absurd.

What was wholly terrifying thought was the moment Kara realised she was alone with Sam for the first time since she basically threw mustard on the woman.

Truthfully she almost found herself begging Lena to not take her ‘urgent call’ and leave them alone whilst Alex and Maggie did Rao knows what (going to get more wine definitely did not take that long considering the store was a two minute walk away, but Kara was not about to listen in and confirm her suspicions of why she hadn’t heard the elevator move in a while - she needed reasonable deniability for the sake of her sanity).

So instead of actually saying something clever, or rather anything at all, Kara just stares. Though, in her defence, she feels like the reason for her staring is justified because it’s quite shocking to realise that someone is only covering up one wrist. Almost as shocking as it is to realise that the wrist Sam wasn’t covering was bare which seemed to suggest one mind-boggling thing.

She only had one name.

Kara had never met anyone with only one name.

“Like my watch?” Sam jokes, implication clear and Kara starts attempting to stutter poor excuses that never quite make it to the light of day. “Relax, I’m kidding. It’s natural curiosity, especially when someone has a kid. And to put it out there before you ask, no Ruby’s father was not my soulmate. Or my enemy. He was just a dick.” Kara doesn’t question the fact that Sam skims over the real question in Kara’s gaze, the one that asks if she knows that it’s Kara on her wrist, the one that asks what she thinks that means for their dynamic.

“Well that’s a given, he skipped out on you.” And Ruby before he even got a chance to realise she was the world’s cutest kid (next to Carter Grant of course).

“Stop you’ll make me blush,” Sam says with a wink, chuckling when it’s ultimately Kara that’s blushing. Kara expects it takes a lot more than a simple compliment to get Sam Arias, CFO and parent extraordinaire, to blush. Kara also expects it was probably worth the extra effort for the satisfaction you felt when you finally made it happen. The same way it made Kara’s day brighter when she was the one who managed to pull a real smile from Lena.

“Can I ask, and please tell me if I’m going too far, why were you with him if you knew that?” Kara had asked herself the same thing when she let herself get confused by her feelings for James. He was kind, and gentle, and far more handsome than Clark ever gave him credit for and she found herself enamoured. For a time. Then he kissed her and she realised she didn’t feel for him what she thought she felt, what she hoped she would feel because it would be easier than having to work out the seemingly impossible, because she knew he’d never have enough power to hurt her.

“I was young; I couldn’t imagine feeling anything more intense than what I felt for him. I suppose I figured no matter what the universe dictates; shouldn’t we all still be allowed to choose?”

“That’s what Kara always says,” Alex points out as she slips back in through the door, two bottles of wine in hand and a grinning Maggie and red faced Lena in tow.

“Well you’re a smart woman Kara Danvers.”

“It’s not too hard to find yourself questioning a system that had Alex thinking she was straight and automatically hating anyone named Maggie.” Alex still wouldn’t tell Kara how she managed to get pudding into the new girl’s locker in junior year. As it turns out Maggie Spencer was actually a super nice person... and also apparently more than a little allergic to strawberries (Kara did tell Alex chocolate was always the best bet).

“It certainly has its flaws,” Sam laughs and yeah Kara could see herself loving someone like Samantha Arias. But the moment she takes her eyes off Sam and finds Lena watching her with a curiously soft smile, Kara thinks that she could find herself loving Lena Luthor just as easily.

Flaws indeed.

* * *

 

“ _I mean, I think he likes you_.”

“ _I’m his boss.”_

Kara shouldn’t be listening in. She knows that. She’s heard way too many conversations (and other things) that she didn’t want to and told herself off for letting go too much way too many times for her not to know that she shouldn’t be listening in to conversations. Especially not those including people she was close to because that’s exactly how you end up finding out Alex’s boyfriend in senior year was making out with most of the female student body behind the bleachers (the fact that Alex wasn’t as upset as Kara thought she would be makes far more sense now).

But the point was that Kara shouldn’t be listening. She had gotten good at not listening. She really hadn’t wanted to be listening and yet, when she saw Sam’s eyebrow tick up and Lena’s lips shift into a nervous smile, she couldn’t help herself. She was weak sometimes, sue her. She was also incredibly stupid sometimes because she didn’t want to hear _that_ , she didn’t even know she didn’t want to hear _that_ but now she has she knows she definitely didn’t want to.

James? Lena and James? The same James who didn’t trust Lena purely because of her name? The same James who still hadn’t apologised for that? Kara loved him. He was family. But it just didn’t make sense, unless... unless his name was printed on Lena’s arm, unless they were meant to be something more and this whole thing was just the universe playing yet another game - it did seem to have a particular love for a plot twist.

That thought twisted in Kara’s gut.

She’s not sure this particular plot twist sat right with her.

Maybe that’s why she finds herself walking over to Lena and Sam, maybe that’s why she finds herself placing herself in a conversation she had no business being in with a, “I don’t mean to eavesdrop but James, huh?” _Rao she really needed to work on subtlety._

“No, I don’t-- Sam was just having a little fun. She thinks she’s a match maker now because she successfully set Jess up with one of the new researchers down in the lab,” Lena says with a roll of her eyes when Sam starts to look smug.

“You have to admit I smashed that one out of the park.”

“Maybe I can concede you did well on that but that doesn’t mean I see Mr Olsen as anything other than an employee and almost friend.”

“So you aren’t...” Kara doesn’t know how to phrase it, doesn’t even really know what she’s trying to say. She knows that she can’t stop her eyes from falling to the chunky bracelets adorning Lena’s pale wrists with more of a question than she ever meant to ask, more of a question that she had any real right to ask considering her skin was no more on show.

“I should go help Alex drink some of that eggnog before she finishes it herself,” Sam says when the silence stretches on long enough that it’s clear Kara isn’t going to finish her sentence, when it’s clear the conversation has been derailed off the joke track and took a turn to somewhere far too serious for a Christmas party where Hall and Oates had played more than five times.

Kara takes the opportunity to refocus herself as she watches Sam make her way to Alex. She can’t help but watch them with a thankful smile - she’s glad she has them, her sister and her newest friend, her apparently very important to her life newest friend. And maybe Kara doesn’t know what Sam will be to her at the end of the day, but she does know that she’s making Alex smile wider than she can remember, wider than she’s smiled since her breakup left her with an almost permanent frown, and maybe that’s enough for now.

Kara is brought back to reality when Lena says, “he’s a _friend_ , Kara,” in a way that sounds like she’s almost begging Kara to believe her, like it really matters to her what Kara thinks and suddenly it’s all a little too much. Kara can’t do this. Not here. Not now.

“So no new researchers at L-Corp left for you?” Kara jokes in an attempt to disarm. Lena eyes her for a moment before she seems to come to a decision, a decision that has her plastering a smile on her face and going along with Kara’s unspoken plea.

“There’s an intern that keeps breaking things when he tries to show me them, but I think he’s probably a little too young for me. He actually still has braces.”

“You gotta give him a break; it must be hard to stay focused when you’re around,” Kara laughs.

Lena not so much, “what does that mean?”

“You know what it means, Lena.”

“I don’t think I do,” Lena argues and if it were anyone else Kara knows that would be bait. That would be an excuse to tease Kara into saying something nice that would ultimately make her feel awkward. But it wasn’t anyone else. It was Lena. The very same Lena who was all bravado, and eyebrow raises and perfectly timed smirks but who, at the end of the day, probably couldn’t say a nice thing about herself even when prompted by the barrel of a gun.

(Self-deprecating didn’t even begin to describe it.

Emotionally scarring childhood probably got a little closer).

“Well you’re- you’re so... and he probably can’t focus when you’re all-“ Kara stammers and if there were ever a time in her life when she wanted to push Winn Schott under the mistletoe and plant one on him, it was in the moment he saved her from continuing to look like a huge idiot.

“Kara, please tell J’onn there’s a limit on how much you can play one Christmas song.”

“There’s definitely a limit, unless that song happens to be ‘ _All I Want for Christmas is You’_ in which case the limit does not exist.”

“You’re right. You’re absolutely right. Everybody get ready for the real MVP of Christmas music!” Winn shouts, before switching the song and grinning at the cheer it elicits from Sam. And yeah, Winn Schott was a huge dork, but Kara loves him, especially when he drags a laughing Lena out of her seat, and not just because it saves Kara from the awkward conversation she threw herself in, but because Lena looks so free, so uninhibited, and it’s beautiful.

She’s beautiful.

Maybe Kara should’ve taken up Alex’s offer of alien level eggnog.

* * *

 

She was fine.

One second Lena was fine. She was standing, and smirking, and being her everyday normal snarky self. She was _fine_. She was great. And then she was writhing in pain on the floor and Kara had to fly her halfway across town wondering if this was finally going to be the day that she lost Lena to some asshole with a superiority complex and too much money to fear consequences.

She can’t breathe. Alex says she saved her and yet she still can’t breathe, can’t stop her heart from hammering when she’s staring at Lena and replaying the sound of silence. Silence where Lena’s heart was supposed to be beating steadily, strongly and instead where Kara had to strain to hear it. The silence where Kara spent a good five seconds thinking there wasn’t one at all. The five seconds where Kara felt like the world had caved on her chest and she couldn’t be bothered to lift it up.

Lena is alive. Lena would be fine. Kara still couldn’t breathe.

She knows why, knows that she can’t stop thinking about the what ifs. _What if she hadn’t been there with her? What if there’d been just a touch more cyanide? What if she hadn’t flown fast enough? What if her freeze breath hadn’t fixed it? What if nothing had fixed it? What if Lena had di-_

No. She wouldn’t think about that. She would think about Lena’s very real, very alive presence in front of her at CatCo. She would just think about the solid weight of Lena’s hand in hers and the steady breaths she could mimic, the steady heart rate she could tap with her fingers. She would think about the way Lena would smile and joke when she opened her eyes again, and Kara would think about the laughter she would manage to produce in that moment - actual laughter, not just some fake copy of the real thing. She would think about how she’d never let this happen again.

_Never_.

“You should take a break from sitting on that couch,” James’ voice knocks Kara out of her stupor, not enough that she bothers to take her eyes off of Lena, not enough that her immediate response is anything but a scoff.

“We both know this is the most comfortable couch in National City.” To Kara’s knowledge that wasn’t even an exaggeration. It was the one Cat Grant always made sure to sit on during meetings. The one opposite was hard as nails, meant to throw people off during talks where they wondered how she managed to look so at ease on the seemingly identical couch.

When Kara had first learned that secret she thought it was stupid, and then she listened to person after person mumble about that horrible couch, and the ice queen that sat on it, and she realised it was so stupid it was genius. Though she really shouldn’t have doubted it. Cat Grant was a genius.

“True but you still need a change of scenery and some air.” Kara knew he was right but that didn’t mean she was just going to jump up and leave. What if she needed to use her freeze breath again? What if they weren’t really out of the woods yet? _What if_...

“What if she wakes up?”

“I’ll call you at the first sign. She’ll want you here anyway.” She almost says no, almost anchors herself further into the couch and refuses to leave. Then Kara realises that she can’t let Lena wake up and see her like this - couldn’t let her wake up and find Kara worried out of her mind when she really needed her to be supportive and ready to kick Edge’s stupid face into next week. Next month. Maybe even next year. So instead Kara nods and heads for the park.

Kara’s staring at everything and seeing absolutely nothing when she bumps into Sam. Literally. And when she was in a better mindset she really needed to work on not doing that in the future.

“Hey, Kara!” Sam laughs, obviously following a similar train of thought. Her laughter dies sharply when she stops to really take a look at the woman in front of her. “Kara.” She says again, soft, sympathetic, all too knowing and then Kara is falling onto the bench beside them with unrestrained sobs. It strikes her that this was the first time she’d cried since it happened, the first time she’d felt anything other than complete and total numbness.

“Edge tried to poison Lena. Well, no, he did poison her and I didn’t even see it coming.” The words are pouring out before Sam can even ask a question because this was the exact thing Kara was supposed to see coming, the kind of thing she was supposed to stop. What kind of superhero let their best friend get attacked right in front of their eyes? What kind of best friend promised they’d always be there for someone and then just let this happen?

“Is she okay?” Sam asks calmly, too calmly for her to actually be feeling that calm about the news. She follows suit and comes to rest on the bench next to Kara with far more grace than the aforementioned.

“She’s fine. She hasn’t come round yet but she’s fine.” _Fine_. She was _fine_. Maybe if Kara said it enough it would start to settle in, would start to feel true.

“Well then you helped her right. You made sure she was alright.”

“I should’ve seen it coming. She shouldn’t have to be sleeping it off.”

“It’s not your fault, Kara. How could you possibly have known? As someone with stakes in L-Corp I gotta tell you there are a lot of attempts on Lena’s life.” She knows it’s meant to be a joke, can practically feel the silence in which her laughter is supposed to fit but Kara can’t laugh. What she can do is settle further into Sam’s comforting touch as she gently runs her fingers through Kara’s hair from her resting place on Sam’s shoulder.

Kara looks up after a while, eyes making note of the compassionate look spread across Sam’s face, before she finds herself moving forwards the tiniest bit. She doesn’t really know what she intends to do, doesn’t know what she’s hoping will happen but Sam seems to understand her exact intent. Sam seems to know a lot of things Kara doesn’t as she shifts ever so slightly to press her lips softly to Kara’s head instead of where they might have ended up.

“You don’t want that, Kara. Don’t let fear push you into bad decisions.”

“Sorry, I-“

“You’re worried about Lena and feeling frazzled. It’s fine. Maybe you should go back, I’m sure she’d like to see you when she wakes up.” When she woke up, because she will. Lena will wake up, crack an extremely out of place joke and then start planning her revenge on Morgan Edge, and Kara was going to be there every step of the way. She wouldn’t let Lena down again. Not after everything Lena did to keep Kara from the ledge after the Daxamite incident.

“Yeah, you’re right. Thank you, Sam. _Really_.”

“Anytime. Let me know when she’s back on her feet?” Sam enquires, Kara nods succinctly, glad she didn’t somehow manage to mess up something else good today.

Kara’s thankful for Sam’s gentle insistence when she finds herself back at CatCo just in time for Lena to wake up, just in time to vaguely explain what happened (less thankful that she has to lie to Lena’s face about the exact events). She’s thankful when she hears Lena’s voice, calm and clear, and knows that she’s going to be alright, that she’s going to be _fine_.

Kara’s more than a little thankful for Sam’s gentle guidance when Sam appears with Alex in tow asking her to give Lena a once over so she can be sure her friend is alright. Thankful when she sees the way Alex looks as Sam when she assures her that Lena is going to be okay.

A look that took soulmate confusion to a whole new level.

A look that meant Alex and Kara were long overdue a talk.

* * *

 

Kara Danvers was a big proponent of the idea that ice cream was always the answer.

A kid falls over and scrapes their knee? Ice cream. An adult falls over and scrapes their knee? Ice cream. Boss makes you so angry you can’t actually form words? Ice cream. Get overlooked in favour of your less strong, but male cousin again? Ice cream. Break up with the woman you wanted to marry because you wanted different things out of life and didn’t want to drag out the heartbreak any longer than necessary?

...

_More ice cream_?

Arguably Kara brings too much (there’s no argument she _does_ bring too much) but Kara also has absolutely no idea what to do in a situation such as this. A situation that kept getting put on the backburner as everything else went up in flames.  A situation that got sidetracked by ‘worldkillers’, and time travel and Kara being in a literal coma. A situation that was obviously still weighing on Alex’s mind more than she cared to admit, evidently exacerbated by new developments.

So Kara knocks on Alex’s door with too much ice cream in her hands and too many teeth in her smile for it to look anything other than suspicious.

“What did I do to deserve this?” Alex asks despite the fact that’s she’s already taking half of it from Kara’s hands and letting her pass through the doorway.

“I realised in all the chaos we never really talked about Maggie. Not properly.” It’s a loaded statement because talking about Maggie means more than talking about a regular breakup, means more than Alex taking off a ring given to her by just anyone. Talking about Maggie means talking about the fact that Alex had found her soulmate, thought she’d found the person she would spend the rest of her life with, and somehow something still managed to go wrong.

“Did you bring rocky road?”

Kara proudly lifts the tub up with a grin, “I’m an alien not a monster.”

“Then please continue with your sisterly questions.” Kara pretends she doesn’t see the scotch Alex pours into the tub before taking a spoonful with a happy sigh. She thinks she probably deserves a drink considering what’s to come and she’s only under the impression that this will be entirely about Maggie, which is might be, it _could_ be.

It really all depends on how brazen Kara is feeling in about, say, two minutes time.

“I only have one - how’re you doing?” Kara won’t lie she spent a good few hours deciding what to ask Alex, deciding the best way to go about it. She figured simple would be most effective in the end, even if she didn’t go the simple way to get to that conclusion.

“I was doing terribly. Felt like someone had punched through my chest. But it got better, not normal, but better.” Alex punctuates every sentence with another splash of scotch and Kara shovels her own ice cream into her mouth each time to stop herself from saying something.

“I’m sorry.”

“I am too. I loved her, I really loved did. And I know there’s a part of me that will always be in love with her, but despite what my skin says, we wanted different things and maybe that’ll change and maybe it won’t, but I can’t sit around waiting to find out.”

“You have to live your life,” Kara agrees.

“Exactly.”

“A life with Sam in it,” Kara says, gamble evident with every new syllable, every new word. It’s been plaguing her mind for days. The smile Alex allowed Sam to bring out of her when so many others had struggled. The love Alex had growing for Ruby since the moment she met her and the respect she had for the woman who brought her into this world. The looks. The tone of Alex’s voice when she assured Sam that she was going to be okay, that they would fix it together. Everything.  Everything that Kara could see Alex felt and knew she didn’t feel herself. Not for Sam.

“Kara-“ Alex sighs, ice cream forgotten as she looks to explain herself.

“That wasn’t an accusation. I need to say something to you and I need you to listen to me. I need you to really hear what I’m going to say, promise?”

“Promise.” It’s solemn, and final, and Kara knows she has a grand total of one shot to get this right before Alex shuts down this conversation forever and pretends it never happened. Just like she always did when emotions ran too high, when it was Kara potentially caught in the crossfire.

“I’ve seen the way you look at her,” Kara begins, sends Alex her best impression of a glare when she opens her mouth to protest. “I don’t look at her like that and yes, Sam is smart and beautiful and kind, and maybe in another life I could’ve fallen in love with her but it’s not another life and the only reason I even gave her a second look in this one was because her name is written on my skin. She said it herself, Alex - we should be allowed to choose.”

“You’re saying you think Lena is your soulmate?”

“I’m saying Sam could very well be the soulmate the universe intended for me and Lena could be my ultimate undoing any day she wanted because she’s a hell of a lot smarter than me, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because the most important thing is that you want someone, regardless of if fate wanted them for you. So _tell_ her.”

(And if Kara was ignoring her own advice well that’s her own business.

She had bigger things to worry about right now).

“I’m scared.” That’s all Alex replies. No argument. No denial. Just two simple words and Kara had never heard such a relatable sentence. She knew that fear, became accustomed to it a long time ago when she lost everything she ever knew, held it close at night like an old friend returned from war.

You see, love was a fickle thing. Not that it was fleeting, or impermanent, or temporary, no, Kara always thought love stayed with you like craft glitter - you find it in places you’d never expect, just when you were sure you’d washed the last of it away. Love was fickle because it was volatile; a second away from going from the best thing to the absolute worst, and Alex knew that better than anyone. But that didn’t mean she shouldn’t still try.

“Why? She’s already got a kid so you’ve got that on lock,” Kara jokes, happily accepts the pillow that slams her upside the head when Alex grins at her affronted face.

“What if she doesn’t choose me?” And that was the real question. The real fear. The real reason Alex hadn’t said a word about this to Kara and the real reason Kara let herself get so bogged down in the hypothetical of the names on her skin. What if you put everything on the line, trusted so wholly in the feeling of your gut and stopped being so afraid, and no one caught you on the other side?

“Vulnerability doesn’t come from a place of power. Sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith.”

A terrifying.

Panic inducing.

Leap into the abyss.

* * *

 

_I’m scared of what I’ll become. I tried to kill Edge. My mother’s back._

Honesty. That’s what Lena had offered Kara from the moment they met. When the chips were down and things needed to be in the open, that’s what she gave her. It’s the reason Kara believed her when she said the video footage Maggie arrested Lena on was fake, it’s the reason she protected Lena at every turn when someone said something out of line, the reason Kara never believed Lena would ever hurt a bunch of innocent children.

Honesty. It was also the reason Kara walked around with the weight of lying chained to her back. _I flew here on a bus. I was out for coffee with Kara Danvers. Me flying an unconscious you across town, what a ludicrous idea_. Lie after lie after lie, and truthfully the more Kara lied, the less she felt like she could ever tell Lena the truth because how was she going to react to her supposed best friend keeping this from her for so long. Not that she probably hadn’t already guessed. But then she’d probably already guessed and then spent the rest of the time wondering why Kara was the worst person ever for lying, presuming she didn’t trust her because her last name was Luthor.

And Kara wants to contest that idea with all her might but when they discover Lena has been doing tests on Sam, tests on _Reign_ , behind their back it is the first thing that springs to mind. She berates herself a second later but she knows the thought was there, the fear was there and she hates herself for it. Hates herself a little bit more when she tries to act high and mighty and Lena asks why she ever should have gone to the DEO about anything when they refused to be open with her.

Or as Lena put it, why should she have disclosed information to ‘ _a clandestine government organisation that has never formally acknowledged itself to her’_. It’s those words that make Kara take a step back. It’s those words that make Kara think about honesty because Lena Luthor has never once lied to Kara Danvers and Kara never gave her best friend a chance to come clean about Sam, too busy with her own super drama.

But Lena has, time and again, been judged for her name. Lena has, one too many times, been told she can’t be trusted because of a family she couldn’t help but be born into. Lena does have every right to be mistrustful of an organisation that labels Luthors as enemy number one. And maybe that’s the whole problem - Lena sees the DEO as an enemy, sees Supergirl as always one step away from rescinding their friendship because of a family feud, sees Supergirl as a separate entity to the woman she was willing to tell company secrets to because of puppy dog eyes.

The whole problem is that Lena was never the issue.

Kara was.

And she was going to fix it.

“Can everybody clear the room, please? I need to talk to Lena alone.” Every single eye in the room is on her in a second, shocked at the abrupt way she called this to an end. Kara doesn’t flinch under their gazes, stares ahead with a clenched jaw and a sure demeanour until J’onn seems to signal for them to follow her orders and has them all file out after him.

“If you want to shout at me in private, a glass conference room probably isn’t the best place,” Lena points out defensively and Kara can’t help the humourless laugh that falls from her lips as she pushes herself up, unable to sit restlessly on the chair any longer.

“I don’t want to shout at you. Rao, I’m such an asshole for even making you think I would. I just- I have to tell you something. I need to tell you who I am.”

“Supergirl-“

“You know, you probably already know because I might be an idiot but you’re not. I just, I have to tell you. I have to say it out loud so that you hear it from me because I think the real reason Clark made an enemy of Lex was because he wasn’t honest. He should’ve been honest and maybe he could’ve stopped all this, maybe he could’ve prevented you from having to live this life. This life where your family think you’re weak for being the strongest woman I’ve ever met and everyone else judges you for a name you played no part in sullying.

“You don’t have to-“

“I do. I have to do this. I’m Supergirl - I was born on a planet named Krypton and when I was thirteen years old I watched everything, and everyone, I loved be destroyed in front of my very eyes. I’ve been hiding under the name Kara Danvers since I got here and I love that name. I love that name because it comes with a family that took me in when I had nothing, a family who still remind me there’s good in this world every day and a sister who I wouldn’t swap for anything.

“But my real name is Kara Zor-El and I won’t lie to you about that ever again because you deserve the truth, because I think the truth is the only way we’re going to be able to work together to save Sam. And I really need to save Sam because I’m pretty sure my sister is in love with her and that’s really not my secret to tell but it’s the last secret I’ve got left to tell right now.”

Kara takes a breath when she’s done; feeling lighter than she has in months despite the fact that she still can’t bring herself to look Lena in the eye. Not that she regrets her choice, she just regrets leaving it so long, leaving it to the point where she’s not sure Lena will accept her apology (to the point where Lillian’s words weigh heavier on her mind than ever - _she’ll never forgive you_ ).

As she stands there, hating silence like she never has before, Kara thinks that she has absolutely no idea what to think, absolutely no idea how she expects things to go from here, but there’s no part of her that expects a warm embrace, and yet, surprisingly that’s exactly what she gets.

Lena stalks across the room as well as only she can in her stupidly high heels and gathers Kara into her arms before the latter even knows what’s happening. Kara all but falls into the hug once she realises what’s going on, allows her head to be tucked into the crevice of Lena’s neck when the chance is offered, allows herself to be calmed by the lulling rhythm of Lena’s pulse.

And it feels weird to feel so powerless, to feel so protected. But with Lena’s hands running through her hair and the realisation that her cheeks were stained with tears she hadn’t even felt fall, that’s exactly how she ends up feeling - _protected_.

Usually when they’d hugged, Lena felt so small, so fragile, so unsure. Today her grip was tight and steady and Kara let herself be the vulnerable one for once. She gripped tighter. As tight as she knew she was allowed and the tiniest bit tighter still. Lena didn’t complain, simply kept her hold.

In the end, Kara didn’t know what she expected.

But she was glad at how it turned out.

* * *

 

When Winn finds Kara she’s still staring at the spot Lena vacated when she went to suit up to find Sam, or Reign, or Sam inside Reign’s mind, or whatever they were supposed to call her. Winn finds Kara having more of a crisis than she’d care to admit and not just because her consciousness was about to be transported to some parallel realm where Sam was apparently being held hostage.

Winn finds Kara in the exact moment she needs a Winn.

“So it seems the whole soulmate thing has unfolded quite well for you. Not that Sam being possessed by an evil Kryptonian killing machine is a good thing, just, convenient, you know, since she tried to kill you and all so it’s probably safe to say the universe isn’t trying to get the two of you to run off into the sunset together.”

“Technically Reign tried to kill me, not Sam.” That’s what Kara kept telling herself, what she needed to keep telling herself if she wasn’t going to go off the deep end, what she kept telling Lena and Alex to stop them from going off the deep end either.

“ _Potayto, potahto_ ,” Winn says and Kara wonders if it really is that simple, if the thought that’s been running around her head since she found out the truth about Reign, the thought Winn had evidently had himself was the right one. If Lena Luthor printed on her left wrist meant what she hoped it meant, if Lena hoped it meant that too.

“I don’t know. I don’t know how this whole thing works and it’s driving me insane because Lena hasn’t said anything and I really wish she would just say something. Acknowledge it. Anything.” That would make things a whole lot clearer, a whole lot easier, because honestly Kara was feeling a bit truthed out at the moment and she needed Lena to take charge and apply some of her stone faced business woman confidence to this situation.

“Like you’ve acknowledged it?”

Kara sighs, all too aware of how right Winn was, “I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

“Maybe you can figure it out whilst you guys walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” And just like that Winn was already back to being an idiot. But, then again, he got Kara to smile so maybe people weren’t so wrong to call him a genius.

“Don’t call it that.”

“I’m calling it that.”

And maybe Kara doesn’t know where she and Lena stood, doesn’t know what will happen, but she does know that Lena takes the time to smile at her before Braniac does his thing and it makes Kara’s stomach swarm with something far bigger than butterflies.

* * *

 

Lena almost dies. Again. Reign has her by the throat and Kara is powerless, literally and figuratively, unable to do anything but watch as Lena struggles to breathe. Even thinking about it now safely in the DEO makes Kara’s own lungs halt for a time, struggling to find her own air as she imagines a world without Lena in it, imagines her life without Lena in it.

She knows that’s why she drags Lena home with her, makes some excuse about how it’s important to regroup after something like that, that it should be done in a safe space. She’s pretty sure Lena thinks that excuse is absolute crap but she follows along with Kara anyway instead of heading back to the hotel room she’d been hiding out in recently, and Kara won’t complain about light grumbling as long as the end result is Lena safe and warm, somewhere Kara could visibly see the rise and fall of her chest.

She thinks it should be awkward, having Lena in her apartment for the first time after admitting she’d been lying to her since they first met, but Lena flops onto the couch the moment she steps inside and barely even acknowledges when Kara falls beside her a moment later, their hands filling the space between them - almost touching but not quite, enough that Kara can feel Lena’s presence even when she dares to close her eyes.

Kara thinks she expected questions. Expected endless curiosity and an unquenchable need to know everything about this new thing placed in front of Lena. But for now there’s nothing. Lena doesn’t question why Kara kept it a secret, or which times she disappeared were actually alien related emergencies. She doesn’t ask about how Kara got here or what her life was like before.

She just sits, silent and contemplative and it’s in that moment that Kara realises she wants questions, she wants curiosity, she wants to share everything she thought no one would ever be interesting in hearing with someone. She wants that someone to be Lena. It’s also in that moment that Kara’s knows Lena wants to be that person, knows that there’s a thousand questions lingering on her tongue but all of them were being over powered by the biggest one of all - _what was going to happen to Sam now?_

One problem at a time.

“We can save Sam. Together. We can do it; we just need to get everything out in the open so we can work from there.” It’s a little optimistic, a little too hopeful but Kara thinks that’s what they need right now - hope. It hadn’t seemed to fail her yet. Perhaps if they just took a second to regroup, to share what Lena had found before everyone started accusing her of being the devil incarnate, they could figure something out. See something they missed. Use something that seemed insignificant before but would finally make sense.

“ _Everything out in the open._ ” Lena whispers like she’s mulling over the thought, deciding what the sentence means to her, just what everything entails. For a moment Kara stares, transfixed as Lena’s fingers run along the metal of her bracelets and then Kara snaps out of it in the exact second Lena flicks her finger and snaps them open, one after the other, lets them fall onto the couch. Kara can’t bring herself to look down at the new skin yet; instead she stares at Lena’s face, wondering if Lena will have the guts to meet her gaze before she has the guts to just _look down_ _already_.

“Lena, what are you doing?” She asks and she’s never heard herself sound so scared before, so reverent and terrified at the same time, so eagerly nervous.

“I’m putting everything out in the open.” She turns her wrists over, leaves the print clear for Kara to see, and for a second all she can focus on is the cursive lettering, so similar to her own. She knows it’s an odd thought, to be surprised at how alike it looked, but Kara had spent more time than she should imagining the skin of Lena’s wrists, the stark contrast of the black ink against her pale skin. For a moment she’s too captivated to focus on what it says, at least that’s what she tells herself, in reality she knows it’s nerves that have her delaying the inevitable.

Kara takes a deep breath. Holds it. One. Two. Three. Reads.

**_Kara Danvers._ **

**_Lena Luthor_. **

She had her own name.

_Her own name_ , which meant-

“You knew. All this time, you knew.”

“Well there was one morning where my hair looked particularly good and I thought I might just be my own soulmate.” Lena jokes to cut the tension but Kara can’t stop staring to even think about pushing out a laugh, can’t stop her mind from racing through a million thoughts at once because Lena knew, she really truly _knew_ and she’d kept it to herself.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Kara asks, voice sounding distant to even her own ears as her fingers entered a cycle of reaching for Lena’s wrist, pulling back an inch away from actually making contact and then starting all over again.

“I didn’t want to force you into something. You always talk about getting to choose despite what the universe might say and I wanted to allow you that. I wanted you to want me.”

“That’s a lot of want.”

“You have no idea,” Lena says with a chuckle and a shake of her head like she herself couldn’t believe how long she’d managed to keep this to herself, how long she’d spent being Kara’s friend when she knew they could be something more.

Kara can’t help but kiss her then. It’s nothing intense; nothing like what she’d been thinking about doing for a while, not even close to everything she’d been wanting to do for even longer, but now wasn’t the time for anything more. Now was the time for short and sweet and full of promise.

“Lena I chose you a long time ago,” Kara admits, mouth still close enough that every syllable is another brush of lips; every word is a new heart beat she skips. Lena smiles and Kara can feel one spread across her own face in turn. She slips her own bracelets off then, slides her hand along Lena’s palm and up her forearm until their names align. “Now we save Sam. Together.”

“Together.”

Kara really hopes they can fix it.

For everyone’s sake.

* * *

 

She escaped. Sam escaped, _Reign_ escaped, stronger than ever and clearly on a warpath. Kara didn’t even want to think about what her ultimate plan was, didn’t have time to think about it as she hunted her down and, even with the modified black rock safely tucked in her suit, Kara didn’t have the greatest feeling about how this was all gonna go.

Turns out she was right to be sceptical.

Turns out Reign’s ultimate goal was to, well, kill the world and Kara seemed to be first on her list.

So breathing hurts, punching hurts, walking hurts, everything _hurts_ and Kara’s acutely aware that everyone at the DEO is probably listening to her get her ass kicked - and also that ‘everyone at the DEO’ now included Lena who had expressly told her to be careful (and Kara would definitely say that broken ribs were probably the exact opposite of what Lena meant by careful).

On the brightside, Reign looked just as worse for wear. On the downside again, Kara was acutely aware that every punch she landed was actually a punch on Sam. The very same Sam who was there for Kara when she was having a meltdown, and for Lena when she was having a meltdown, and for Alex when she was also having a meltdown. And Ruby. _Rao, Ruby_. Ruby being the exact reason why Kara hadn’t yet used the rock burning a hole in her pocket.

She knows she should have.

She knows this could have ended a long time ago if she had.

Three times over this could have been done. Three times over she could have put a stop to all of this once and for all but she was scared. Scared it wouldn’t work, and ultimately just as scared that it actually would and what that would all mean in the end. Lena modified it to kill Reign inside her but what if Reign was more of Sam than they thought, what if taking away Reign left nothing of Sam, what if killing Reign meant Kara was really killing Sam?

Kara couldn’t be responsible for killing a friend.

A fourth time. Kara overpowers Reign, one hand holding her on the ground and the other fiddling with the item in her pocket, stares into eyes that she knows don’t belong to a monster; she can’t bring herself to do it. She can’t hurt Sam. She means too much, to her, to everyone and Kara had pushed through a lot, had compartmentalised her choices and told herself her actions were for the greater good in the past but she’s not sure she could do that again. She’s not sure she could do that when it’s Sam in the lurch.

“Sam. Rao, Sam if you can hear me, please fight this. We don’t have to do this just because of what it says on our skin. Samantha Arias isn’t my enemy because Reign isn’t who you are. So fight it. Fight her and be _more_. Be a mother and a friend, be the hero you wanted to be at the start of all this, for Ruby and for yourself. The people who made you don’t get to decide who you are, Sam, and neither does the universe. You do. Just... _please,_ fight it.”

“I don’t- I don’t think I can.”

“You can, Sam. I know you and I know that you can do this. We need you, I _need_ you, my sister _needs_ you, and Lena, well Lena doesn’t have the friends to spare. All of us need you, so fight,” Kara pleads and honestly she doesn’t know what she thinks we’ll happen, she’s fairly sure all of her pleading was probably in vain but she had to try.

But, even with her expectations set to zero, she never foresaw Sam reaching into Kara’s palm and taking the black rock, nor does she expect the pained, “sorry” before Sam jams the rock into her own chest.

A blood-curdling scream is the last thing Kara remembers before she’s knocked back and then all she can see is white, all she can hear is a deafening ring and muffled carnage like she was plunged under water. Following blurry shapes on charred palms, Kara drags herself towards the mass she presumed was Sam, the one she hoped was a still breathing Sam.

Kara’s fingers are shaking too much to search for a pulse, her eyes blurring with tears that she refuses to shed because this couldn’t be it. She lifts Sam into her arms, gently rests her head in the dip of her elbow and runs her fingers along the jagged cut above her brow where Kara had landed a particularly harsh blow.

It’s quiet for a while, almost peaceful in the aftermath, and all Kara can sense beyond the lessening ringing is the pounding of her own heart and then, miraculously, another one beating alongside it.

“Kara...”

“Sam, you’re okay.”

“Little sore, but still currently breathing. Seems like a win all things considered,” Sam says with comforting smile and of course Sam would still take this moment to attempt to comfort someone else, even when in pain. Except Sam looked nowhere near as worse for wear as Kara thinks she should (she didn’t want to toot her own horn but she packed a pretty hard punch). It’s that thought that has Kara’s eyes trailing down and catching sight of something she almost couldn’t believe.

“I don’t mean to alarm you but you seem to be healing yourself... and your chest is glowing.” Sam’s hand immediately flings to her chest to assess the damage and Kara herself can’t help her curious hands as she takes in the green light gently emanating from beneath Sam’s skin, surrounding her heart with a foreign glow.

It’s warm to the touch, nothing like the way Reign felt beneath Kara’s fist, and everything like Sam, and Kara finally feels her body relax, finally feels like the shadow overhead had passed because they’d done it. Sure, Alex and Lena would have to do some tests but she was pretty sure this could only mean one thing - Sam was Sam again, or Sam was Sam plus some new found Kryptonian abilities.

“Does this mean...?”

“I’ve actually been looking for a partner – the other applicants were kinda terrible but I think you might just have what it takes. Maybe we could discuss it after I’ve spent a couple hours being berating for my recklessness under a sun lamp?” Kara couldn’t say she was totally looking forward to that, except, she was pretty sure it would be Lena not Alex doing the berating this time and she had to admit it was nice seeing first hand that she cared (and also, it just might have been her opinion that Lena looked really cute when she was trying, and completely failing, to be angry at Kara).

“Sounds good to me,” Sam agrees, daring to push herself into sitting up without Kara’s help, smiling victoriously when she succeeds. “And, thank you, for not giving up.”

“Friends don’t quit, we’re stronger together.” It feels good to say it. Good to remember the values of her family and know that she had managed to find that again on Earth and that sometimes those were the best kinds of families - those built from individuals who had lost too much, struggled through so much, and still managed to find hope in one another.

Kara for one was pretty happy with her mismatched band of misfits.

“How’s Alex?”

“Good. She has Ruby at the DEO, they’ve missed you.”

“She missed me?” Sam asks, too disorientated to mask her rather excited curiosity, and Kara can’t help the slight chuckle that spills from her lips before it’s cut off by Sam’s blush.

“She did,” Kara assures, her soft smile shifting to something cheekier when her ears pick up on the sounds of DEO cars approaching in the distance. “You should tell her you like her new haircut, she’s been anxious about it.” Turns out Kara didn’t even need to give that boost because Sam short-circuits the moment she sees it, pulls Alex into a hug just as tight as the one she gives Ruby, runs her fingers along the freshly shaved side of Alex’s head with such care and caution that Kara knows they’ll be okay.

And when Lena sprints out of one the vans, eyes darting over Kara in a silent assessment of her injuries before kissing her soundly without a care as to what people might think, what they might say, without a care about anything in that moment but Kara she knows they’ll be okay too.

They’ll all be okay.

* * *

 

“Papers all signed,” Lena announces with a proud smile and a flex of her hand that suggests Pam from HR had taken it upon herself extend the NDAs yet another page or two –  at this point, Kara was sure it was her life’s work to create the world’s longest, most boring, document.

Still, when Lena finally makes it out alive she still bounds to her feet and cheers, “welcome to Team Super!” She will admit that the banner may have arguably been too much, but Kara and Winn had found a lot of time on their hands as they waited for Lena to be done and Eliza always said only boring people get bored (that’s what she’ll also blame for the fact that she made a quick trip out to collect the confetti canon that Winn had just let rip all over the room).

“Thank you,” Lena chuckles, picking confetti out of her hair with a fond look that speaks volumes of how stupid she thought Kara and Winn were being but that she was allowing it because she thought it was sweet. “I’m actually thinking of them getting framed for my apartment - _‘I know supergirl’s identity’_ \- might liven the place up a bit.”

“I could sign it if you’d like?” It wouldn’t be the first thing Kara had signed for someone. She still blushes thinking of the time she’d been asked to sign a woman’s chest after saving her from a burning building - she’d done it of course, and then woken up the next day to her awkward face plastered all over the internet with various captions she was hoping to forget.

“Maybe you could come round and help me pick a place for it? I’m thinking the bedroom.”

“Your bedroom?” Kara all but chokes, voice pitched a lot higher than it usually was. She tries to cough to cover it up but with one look at Lena’s face, she knows she’s not fooling anyone - especially when Winn is barely managing to stop sniggering behind her.

“Yeah, think you could help me out?”

“No, yeah, definitely. I could- I could do that.”

“Great because there’s actually a couple other things I’d love to show you in there.” _A couple things_. _In Lena’s bedroom_. Kara stands statuesque for a second before she realises that Lena is waiting for her to respond, or more, or something other than Kara having a silent inner moment.

“That’s-“

“Oh my God, go already; I never needed to hear all of this!” Winn moans, receiving some vague nods in consensus from various agents Kara couldn’t even name, agents she didn’t even realise were milling about around them. Kara feels her face heat at the show but accepts Lena’s extended hand anyway as Lena shoots a wink at Winn and chuckles at the way Kara trips over her own feet as she tries to follow casually (she’s almost glad she wasn’t wearing her super-suit and trying to claim some air of authority because it would’ve been quickly destroyed).

Kara gains confidence with every new step they walk towards Lena’s building because Lena never once let’s go of her hand, no matter how many people they pass, no matter how many people look, or how many times she hears her name being whispered in the tone that says this will be plastered on every gossip magazine cover by tomorrow. Lena never lets go. Never flinches. And, when Lena squeezes her hand in reassurance Kara finally realises that neither of them had thought to put on their bracelets that day, neither of them had thought to hide.

Complete, brutal honesty.

And when they finally make it to Lena’s apartment Kara takes in the sight of it with a deep inhale and the strange realisation that it’s the first time she’s ever actually been inside Lena’s real home. Not some impersonal hotel room or a family manor that spoke nothing of Lena’s character. Her home.

“I like your apartment. It’s very... you.” The piles of books spread around the house like one would always be in reach - ranging from thick, spine cracked books on physics to classics that most read out of necessity or bragging rights but seemed so well loved, to those romance novels with the shirtless men pictured on the front that were hidden beneath other books but still so openly available it was obvious Lena indulged her guilty pleasure more than she’d like to admit.

Kara takes in the thick framed glasses sitting on the kitchen counter which were obviously never worn outside of Lena’s comfort zone and the stupidly expensive bottles of wine in their own designated rack because Lena obviously took some things from her disaster of an upbringing.

It was nice.

It was _Lena_.

“Yeah?” Lena checks, self conscious and far more nervous than she needs to be, but Kara squeezes the hand still tightly intertwined with her own and nods with a smile that has Lena returning it in kind as her shoulders drop from their tense perch. “I would’ve invited you before but, truth be told, I like going to your apartment. It makes me feel safe to be surrounded with so much Kara Danvers.”

“Is that why you stole my sweater?” Kara had found her National City University sweatshirt missing about three weeks before she found it wrapped around a drunken Lena Luthor. She hadn’t said anything obviously, and not just because there was an MIT hoodie hiding in her closet to help her through her rainier days.

Lena smirks, tugs Kara along with an abrupt change of subject. “Come on, I really do have something to show you.” Kara follows along without argument, accepts the request to sit on the edge of the bed without question as Lena disappears into an almost too big closet and comes out dangling a garment bag off the tips of her fingers. “So I’ve actually been working on this for a while, kind of a ‘thank you for finally telling me you’re Supergirl present.’”

Thank you for _finally_ telling me.

Kara almost comments on the thinly veiled admission that Lena had definitely known about her little secret way before Kara ever found the courage to admit it, but instead when she opens her mouth all that comes out is an excited gasp as Lena unzips the bag and nervously holds the hanger up higher to present Kara with her gift - a new suit.

A new, _and improved_ , suit.

“It has pants,” Kara gasps.

“I sewed in a snack pocket too.”

“Rao, I love you,” Kara says without thought. Then she stills. Lena does too, knuckles going white as her grip tightens on her creation. Neither manages to speak for a moment as Kara tries to work out what to do and Lena tries to figure out how she was managing to breathe so easily only seconds before. “I mean, like I- _No_ , you know what, I mean exactly that. I love you,” Kara admits because it occurs to her that she did say it without thought because she didn’t need to think.

She knew. She felt. She _loved_ Lena.

“I love you too.” Lena’s reply comes in a hesitant tone that sounds almost like she’s mulling over the words, like they’re foreign to her, like they were something she hadn’t said in a long time, perhaps even something she hadn’t imagined herself ever saying again. Then she starts laughing with bright eyes and a wide smile and, even in its craziness, Kara knows it’s the singular most beautiful sound she’s ever heard.

“I love you!” Lena shouts again because she can, and then Kara’s laughing too until Lena lobs the new suit over her shoulder without a care and Kara goes to protest because that was her new baby. Only ‘goes to’ were the optimum words because Lena all but throws herself at Kara before she has the chance to vocalise anything and Kara finds herself taken off guard enough that she falls back onto the bed under the weight of Lena’s kisses and, honestly, with Lena’s lipstick spread across every available inch of skin on her face, Kara really couldn’t care less about the suit.

Not that she wasn’t gonna get back to that snack pocket later.

Much, _much_ , later.


End file.
